1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of the arthroscopy and surgery of the wrist or shoulder of a patient and, preferably, the invention concerns a device for retaining or holding, or applying traction to, the hand and/or the arm of a patient for subjecting the same to arthroscopy and/or open surgery without the need of moving the patient. While only mention to arthroscopy and/or surgery of the wrist and shoulder is made in the present application, it will be obvious to any person skilled in the art that the principles of the present invention are applicable to the operation or treatment of any other limb of a patient, such as a foot/leg, which limb must be held in an position extended from the patients body during the operation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is well known that surgical operation imposes the surgeon and assistants to keep the patient stable and immobilized and this is of particular importance when a body member such a hand, foot, arm or leg is operated which operation requires precise and accurate operating movements in very small body rooms such as a wrist, shoulder, etc. For keeping the patient""s member stable many devices, systems and structures are employed, all of them extremely cumbersome and bulky.
A device available at the marked through the firm Innomed Instrument Division under the trademark Medscape comprises a structure designed to fit onto an operating room table, the structure comprising four uprights bars capable of being fitted onto the O.R. table by means of socket clamps. The device also includes a tight assembly, a stabilizing bar and a tightening mechanism all operable to keep the structure stable and, hence, the patient""s limb immobilized and stable. The volume occupied by this system is excessive and many components must be manipulated until setting the system for operation and during the operation thereof as well.
According to another system for operating the arm of a patient, the patient is placed in the O.R. table and the arm to be operated is connected to a traction suspension system having an arc portion connected to the O.R. table and a pulley arrangement fixed to the O.R. ceiling. Other systems for operating arms use an arrangement of several pulleys and ropes or slings with the pulleys being fixed to or suspended from the ceiling. This system not only is cumbersome and unsafety for the preparation, mounting and adjustment of all its components but also is bulky and the slings are an obstacle to the surgeon during the operation.
Another system particularly used for wrist arthroscopy and surgery combines a hand table forming part of the O.R. table with a vertical tower fixed to a base plate. The fingers of the patients are connected by means of straps to a cross piece that moves up and down along the vertical tower for the traction of the patient""s forearm. While this system is simpler as compared to the above mentioned traction assemblies, the system is limited and restricted to basic and elemental movements and positioning.
There is a major drawback in all of the above traction or retention systems and this problem is related to the possibility that the surgeon, upon examining the situation once the member of the patient to be operated has been fixed to the traction device, decides to proceed with an operation that needs that the position of the patient""s member be altered and place the member, a hand for example, firmly rested onto the operating table. To proceed with this action in all of the conventional devices, the hand must be left free and released from the device and the device repositioned with the prejudice of loosing sterilization of the device. It is important to remark that, while the device is sterilized entirely before entering the O.R. this sterilization is loosened in those parts of the device which are placed in contact with no sterilized parts of the operating table and equipment.
It would be therefore convenient to have a new system for holding, retaining and/or applying traction to a patient""s limb, preferably a patient""s arm, for operation purposes, with the possibility of positioning and stabilizing the arm in any desired position of a wide range of positions.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide a device for holding and immobilizing a limb of a patient for treating the same, preferably in surgery for the wrist or shoulder of a patient, the device comprising a telescopic upright tower bar for connecting to an operating room table and for moving up and down in the table, a horizontal arm connected to the upright bar for moving back and forth in the upright bar, the horizontal arm including a distal end for connecting to the patient""s hand.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a device for holding and immobilizing the hand/arm of a patient for surgery, the device comprising a base support for attaching to an auxiliary operating room table, an upright tower bar comprising an outer tubular bar having an outer threaded surface threadably connected to the base support and an inner threaded bore threadably receiving an inner threaded bar, the tubular bar having an upper end and a lower end and being movable up and down by rotating the bar in the base support, a horizontal arm threadably connected to an upper end of the inner bar, the horizontal arm having a proximal end for rotating the horizontal arm and moving the same back and forth, and a distal end for holding the fingers of the patient.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of this invention will be better understood when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings and description.